Apple Pie
by Annie Christ
Summary: The dystopian love story of a whiskey bent biker boy and a blondette who spends more time on a pole than thinking for herself. A twist of Sour Mash and Tennessee Honey with just a hint of American flag short shorts. Road dog wars, leather jackets, and an attempt to rediscover the 'old world.' Partial Genderbend.
1. Tennessee Honey

_Home_  
_Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros _

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**Chapter One: Tennessee Honey**

She was a slice of all American apple pie with a daddy too dead to know she drank Tennessee Honey after her late night shift. Neon lights were her starlight, and those desert lungs refused to hitch when stiletto encased toes stepped around a pole wiped down by rags feigning cleanliness. For someone who'd never meandered outside her grimy Nevada hometown, her eyes still reflected God's sapphire seas as if she knew the universe the way others knew their hands. The places she went were never conventional. She'd been on her knees for the kind of extra money that paid next month's rent, and she'd taken a trip down the finely cut line of white. She'd visited the underneath of tables and noted the differentiating landscapes of strangers' couch cushions, but she'd never seen the valleys where she could writhe without the assistance of her own encircling fingertips. Every shift of her muscles was coated in the kind of lactic acid that seared through her natural tan and created cancerous holes in the heart her momma spat out when she packed her makeup bags. She'd told daughter to be a good girl for Daddy. Momma needed to go to Vegas and become a star. A Greyhound bus stole her mother, and the pretty blonde with Cupid's bow lips wasn't sure when she'd stopped anticipating the great return.

There wasn't a woman I'd met who didn't want me to deliver them from their sins: this was solely because I smoked like a freight train and wore the kind of leather jackets hotter than the parts on my Ducati. I'd grown heinously accustomed to getting what I wanted from the opposite gender. All it took was a knowing look and gesture toward the closest dark corner. Whiskey was my partner in crime, and I adored the female body the way some worshipped God. I couldn't have enough women, which was why the blessing of being tall, red and handsome was a curse to others and my greatest assets. I wasn't particularly gifted with words, and cutting looks had gotten me farther than any high school diploma. My intelligence was written in the highway I devoured as I slipped through state after state. My brains were saturated in the philosophy only Sour Mash could conjure. There wasn't much I couldn't rightly discern, and once in a blue moon, it felt right to call me smart.

"She's a frigid bitch."

The most glacial man I'd ever grown to know let his enunciation rain down on a blonde flash of shortness. Cocking an eyebrow, I eyed the girl he was referring to as she strode toward the building we were loitering in front of with hurried pep. Metallic silver stilettos gave her the missing height found on typical bombshells, but the only thing I could concentrate on was the way her ass was cupped by a dress approximately an inch away from showing off the goods. I couldn't see her face, but then again, after a couple shots none of that really mattered. There wasn't much light in the sky, but she was rushing because the pink neon lights flashing over her exposed shoulders was the beginning to the kind of workday that went on until dawn. Bourbon was her coffee, and she'd be fortunate to get a single meal of a meatless salad in before heading to her modest apartment for sleep.

"But how is she frigid?" I asked, watching as she disappeared through the metal front door. In a flash aforementioned door slammed behind her. "Aren't strippers supposed to be friendly for—ya know, _tips_?"

Saïx didn't look at me. He was leering at the door she had vanished through; and if I hadn't known him better, then I'd have assumed she scorned him once upon a time. Though, he regularly called others character and gave himself the right to formulate negative opinions faster than a flea on a dog. He personally didn't know much of anyone. "She won't put out for anything but a nice chunk of money, and from what I've heard, she's the equivalent to fucking a couch cushion."

There was a Zippo between my fingers as I gave what he said some genuine thought, and I whipped it open with my eyes still on the door. Topless bars had never been my thing because I could smell the hopelessness and genital infections the way one could practically feel the formaldehyde in a funeral home. Though the glitz and bang of stages with their multi-colored lights and cheap upholstered chairs could be tacky fun; there was still an underground vibe of despair. In areas like the small town my gang had recently decided to spend a couple weeks hiding out in a woman didn't take her clothes off for pay without being down on her luck. There was no self-righteous service where she was making some kind of statement about her womanhood. No, they were tough as nails individuals paying bills, feeding mouths and hoping their fantasy appearances would last another year because the landlord hiked the rent again.

"Not to disregard your lowly opinion of the broad, but I'd bet anything wanting to pay up to put their dick in her is about as appealing as dog shit. If you've got to pay, then you're probably an ass face."

He pushed cerulean hair off his forehead, but my words hadn't made much impact. "If she's being paid, then there's no excuse."

I gritted my teeth and showed the pearly whites with a quick slit of the lips. This was followed by a fast eye roll. Mocking him was my goal in life, and there were moments when I had a hard time believing he had once been my number one brother where we laughed until we puked up Jack Daniel's and shared women. I suppose getting in a drunken fight and mauling someone's face with a broken beer bottle doesn't make for the continuing of a friendship, but he'd definitely had it coming.

The second we both turned eighteen we'd morphed into raging alcoholics, but our drunkenness had sparked two completely different personalities. While I sashayed through my own demons in a way that kept my original sociability as intact as possible, he had fallen into a bitter pit where the gang we involved ourselves with was the sole priority in his life. A strong association with our leader meant easy access to cocaine and whatever other vices his fingers could sink into. In short, I didn't care for him anymore. The only sense of regret I found myself dwelling on was the bike I'd helped him build. It could've been mine.

There was a short silence before I couldn't contain my curiosity. "Is she at least good on stage?"

"I've never seen her."

I let another pause reign. "Want to check it out?"

He shot me a cutting side glance, and the judgment seeped into my skin. "I'm indisposed to venereal diseases."

"Man," and I smacked him square on the spine as a friendly gesture even though the strength I used was all but kind, "it's a strip club. I didn't just ask you to go to a fucking whore house with me. Cut the shit and let's check out some barely covered ass. You know you want to."

His expression didn't falter, so I turned around and began walking backwards in front of him. My hands were shoved into my jacket's pockets, and I shrugged as I continued toward the building. The boots I wore were kicking up dirt as I stepped, and my grin was a direct blow toward Saïx. He was chicken shit in the way that I wanted to box his fucking ears only to follow up with a hard deck to the temple. The asshole wasn't concerned about catching diseases or anything remotely close to that: he didn't want the almighty leader to find out he had done something potentially fun for once. The scarred up son of a bitch was wrapped around my boss man's finger in the kind of way I could only see as _disgusting_. If I didn't value my life, then I would have ridiculed their relationship openly. But I enjoyed my fast living too much to sacrifice it for gratuitous insults.

With a finalizing waggle of my eyebrows, I turned on my heel and pushed myself through that heavy green door and into a room cutely named the Parlor. There was nothing classy about the room's antiquated name, and the Victorian charm implied was simply three stages set up like circus rings with condemning poles drilled through their centers. With neon piping along the outer edges, I had to look away from the blinding fuchsia and make my way to the bar. There was peeling peridot paint along the front and stools adorned with shredded black vinyl. Instantly, I wondered how anything remotely pretty could work in such a dive, and my anticipation to see the blonde's face had morphed from expectancy to morbid curiosity.

"You're too pretty to be here."

I hadn't noticed her until she spoke up from the other end of the bar. She was squat and resembled a porcelain doll my little sister would've collected, but I could tell the black pixie cut and doe eyes were misleading. This tiny girl was wiping dry a weizen glass behind the bar with an expectant look, and I decided to be kind to her because she seemed to be the only one serving booze. It was never a smart idea to piss off the source of your vice.

"You think so, huh?" And I leaned toward her. "Take it this place gets some real lookers?"

She gave me a clipped laugh and a roll of the eyes. "If sun baked road kill and jerky skin is your definition of a looker, then you'd be about right."

My scoff was purposely dramatized. "I'm sure they're not _that_ bad."

The three phases of her expression went as such; amusement, disbelief, and contemplative. "Our clientele consists of truckers, bikers and men who've been married for twenty-five years. When you find beauty in that tell me what prescriptions you're taking because I'll be sure to mention them to my doctor."

Gesturing toward the grand scenery that was the very titty bar we stood in, I gave her the biggest shit eating grin I could muster. "I ride. So, this place is pretty much the spitting image of my other homesteads speckled across the vast ole countryside. You implying a man has to be fucking ugly to be a biker?"

She eyed me with great scrutiny. "You do _not_ ride."

That was a huge pill to swallow considering I was sitting there in the dustiest leatherwear God had ever seen fit to allow on His green earth. "Pretty girl, you don't know shit about me."

"Then, enlighten me and tell me why you're here." Her fingers had abandoned the task at hand, and those bright eyes were focused on my mug. "My name's Xion. That's a good enough ice breaker, right?"

"Axel," I answered easily enough. "I'm here because I'm a low life male who likes a nice set of fucking tits. The same reasons any other man would be here."

Xion's next look was constructed by an arched eyebrow and pursed lips. "Want me to be perfectly honest?"

All I could do was offer up a shrug. "Go for it."

"You're not going to see much on stage." Finally, she made her way in front of me. "We have one girl worth looking at, and that's about it before the rest gets ugly as sin."

"You're all about the welfare of your employer's business, aren't you?"

That was when she set a beer down in front of me with rapid fire speed, and our eyes locked. Somehow, I had taken a strong immediate liking to her, and she must've caught my at ease vibes because she gave me an appreciative smile. She didn't seem to wear it often. The coloring of the label was enough to let me know the bottle wasn't something I'd usually drink from, but that was no skin off my back when I wrapped my lips around the ridges of the bottle's mouth. The brew was good enough to get me by, and I decided I liked Xion even more upon deducting the beer was everything but bottom shelf. The dive we were in wasn't a place I'd expected imported beer from.

"The only reason I'm here is to save up enough to get the hell out of dodge."

I nodded. "This town isn't exactly the land of milk and honey."

"You're telling me." Suddenly, she glanced up at the stage where a handful of other men were encircling. At the sound of abrupt music her brow furrowed. "They never start Roxas out first. Maybe they messed up the music? That's not right at all."

Glancing over my shoulder, I went from simply looking back to turning completely around in my stool. This was all because the girl stepping out on stage with shimmer smeared beneath her baby blue eyes and not a lot to show for clothes was a blond. She was a that same tiny girl I had watched scamper into the building only seconds beforehand, and her face was the kind of sculpted marble that made me believe in God again. High cheek bones, a defined dip in her upper-lip, and the kind of speckling of freckles that covered her nose and chest like stars across a night sky. She was the kind of girl men wrote whiskey love ballads about.

The sound of my bottle being picked up and placed back down let me know Xion had taken a sip from my beer. I wasn't complaining. After all, she was paying.

"I knew you'd gawk."

My mouth fleetingly opened, but I shut it and waited a second before finally speaking. "I'm only human."'

"No—you're only _male_."

"That's also indisputable."

"Don't even think about it." Xion took another sip from my bottle, which was why I turned around and snatched it back with a smirk. "No one ever gets with Roxas, okay? So, just keep your head out of the clouds."

My eyes were like magnets to the stage. "She doesn't date?"

"The girl takes her clothes off for the scum of the earth," Xion said, exasperated by my apparent ignorance. "Why the hell would she ever want any _man_ from around here constantly near her? You're looking at the town whore who's sweeter than anyone I've ever met. That's how it goes in places like this, though. People care more about where genitalia go than what you've got in your heart even if it's none of their damn business. The pretty girls in their Sunday finest have done less charity work than that girl up there."

"Does she have a story?" I asked as I reached for the bowl of peanuts.

Xion swatted at my hand. "Those are so old they've been here before me, and she sure does, but it's not my place to gab to you about it. For all I know you could be some creepy serial killer. Isn't that how it works? They always smile nice and are way too good acting for their own—well, _good_?"

"Devilishly attractive is another common trait."

"You're setting yourself up for zero trust, boy."

"I'm flattered to think you ever considered it an option."

There was an annoyed exhale on her part before I returned my undivided attention to the stage Roxas was displaying athleticism on. Muscular thighs and lean yet toned arms capable of pulling up her weight, and there were moments when I was certain she would lose her gripping and drop directly from the top of the pole all the way down. Her abdominals were taut, her barely covered breasts were the kind of natural perkiness that left me open mouthed and shamelessly salivating, and when she brought her thigh around that pole I was almost certain Jesus had kissed my nose. There was nothing about her that wasn't relaxed, but even when she smiled at the men throwing money onto the stage and begging for her to finally remove her top there was strange nonchalance. This was nothing to her, and she was faking it in a way that made me want to unplug the music and call the sham. Too bad it wasn't my place, and really, who didn't know this was all bullshit fantasy? That was the point.

Chivalry wasn't my thing. I wasn't above admitting that because being an honest person was practically tattooed across my heart. That being said, when she began to untie her halter top I swiveled back around and asked Xion for another beer. Again, I'd never been one for strip clubs and at the sudden roar of catcalling and cheers I recalled why for probably the twentieth time since walking into the facility. She barely looked eighteen years old; suddenly I wanted to know if she had any hopes or dreams. I wanted to know if she had a kid at home, and whether or not she knew what it was like for someone to extend a helping hand. Was the world some bleak weight on her freckled chest or did she know how to seek out the kind of light I'd only heard existed and never seen myself? Her eyes illuminated with a familiarity I could feel wrenching my sternum open, and I knew the way I wanted to drag her off that stage wasn't a cliché form of being Prince Charming.

"What time does her shift end?"

Xion clicked her tongue at me. "Once her show is over she leaves."

I waited it out. With Xion handing me beer after beer and allowing me to smoke inside, I refrained from watching and spent a majority of my time fiddling with a Zippo and annoying myself with the incessant sharp noise of the top being whipped open and being whipped shut. It was the worst thing having a habit that annoyed yourself; but I couldn't just not keep myself busy. Xion had other customers to tend to, and though she flitted by to gift me with exaggerated expressions of disdain she couldn't keep a conversation intact. My favorite one of her displays of annoyance was when she offered an old trucker with armpit stains resembling urine the bowl of peanuts. They were fresh, she said, and they were delicious.

The song ended, and I was on my feet in a matter of seconds. Laying down a twenty for Xion who was clearly confused, I waved her off and strode toward the front door where I planned on waiting even if his holiness Saïx was there with his stare of shame. Surprisingly, though, the man wasn't there. It was only my bike parked off in that gravel. There was the momentary awkwardness of standing outside and smoking by myself because I was self-conscious of looking pathetic. I couldn't remember very many times I'd ever been alone. Not since joining Organization XIII because the gang was thicker than blood splattered thieves. We subconsciously seemed to have a buddy system where no one went anywhere alone. I wasn't sure why, but I'd clearly grown accustomed to it.

Somehow the door opening startled me, and I wasn't sure what the hell I was doing, but I wanted to talk to Roxas even if the weird stalker vibe was radiating from me without any kind of tact. It didn't matter at all, but even though I'd instantaneously spurted a fungus of need to speak to her—when Roxas appeared through that front door in the same hugging dress from before—I couldn't bring myself to utter a word. Her hair was an ungodly length with that wavy edge I knew was natural and more than likely untamable, and her walk slayed me. She bounced with shoulders brought back and a head held high, and I wanted to count the freckles on her shoulders. In short, I was disgusting myself. I didn't even know I'd had a penchant for blonds. This wasn't even a preference. This was a god damn celestial pull where I wanted to get to know her before ravaging her. I felt like a pig.

"Roxas!"

I called out her name after she'd distanced herself about twenty feet, and the fact that she immediately halted drenched me in relief. The only problem was that when she turned around I was stunned and had absolutely no idea what to say because I was suddenly reverted back to being an eleven year old with barely dropped balls. The look on her face was one of raised brow confusion where the deepest blue eyes I'd ever seen scanned me over. We didn't know each other. I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting, but the longer I kept that silence going the worse the awkwardness seemed to seep into bones. I had to say something or all my pride would take a swan dive off the Empire State Building. I was trying to remember when I'd ever been nervous around a woman before this point in my life.

"Okay then—" and she began turning around, which led me to panic.

Her voice was light like wind chimes, and it was enough to stun me into a deeper pit of stupidity.

"Wait, wait…" Finally, something hit me in the back of the skull. I picked up my booted feet to follow after her with long strides. The closer I came to her, the tinier she seemed to become, and the fact that she barely reached my shoulder amazed me. "Xion told me your name, and I just—"

Again, I found myself trailing off. I wanted to stick my tongue down a garbage disposal because it was useless anyway. Really, how was I supposed to explain myself to her without sounding like some major creep? I wasn't even from the same town as her. We hadn't gone to high school together or occasionally spoken in the dairy aisle at the local grocers. Talking to her in front of the strip club she'd just finished her shift at looked exactly as she probably saw it as. I was some bitch hungry sleaze bag wanting nothing but five minutes between her legs.

"Can I walk you home?" I asked, and I hated myself. I wanted to stuff my hands into my mouth and just eat them off my wrists because I couldn't say anything smooth to her. There was no substance to my conversation with her. I placed the blame on the beers Xion had given me. I was an infidel, and this tiny blonde ball of bang was intimidating me into a corner.

Roxas continued with her even pace toward a sidewalk while her eyes remained focused straight ahead. "I don't even know your name."

More internal self-hate for fumbling over introductions. "I'm Axel."

"Axel—" She said my name as if tasting it. I was waiting for her to outright reject me. "Why is someone like _you_ outside of somewhere like _there_?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm asking you what you want."

It was my turn for me to furrow my brow. "I already asked if I could walk you home."

For some reason that was really funny to her.

She let out a quick laugh. "Okay."

Roxas didn't stop walking, and I didn't stop accompanying her, so I figured this was going to actually pan out. Knowing it was my place to initiate conversation, I wanted to fall directly in line with a multitude of personal questions; but as fucking miserably impaired as I seemed, I knew social cues. I could've asked about the weather. I could've asked about her favorite music, the best movie she'd ever seen, and even whether or not the south should secede the north. That was all so generic in my book. They were probably questions she'd been asked a million times over, and I had a feeling this was my one chance to possibly wiggle my way into her tolerance.

"Do you drink whiskey?"

I was surprised when she gave herself over to a closed lip smile and evident amusement with the weird question. "A little more than I'd like."

"Jack Daniel's or…"

Her nod was relaxed. "Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey."

I let out a small grunt and shook my head. "Damn, girl. You're looking at a Sour Mash man."

"I could've put money on that guess."

My smile finally hit. "And why's that?"

She looked me over again and abruptly began to mock my demeanor and walk. She deepened her voice and sarcastically pushed a set of fingers through her hair with an exasperated sigh. "My name's Axel and I wear a leather jacket. I'm probably in some kind of gang, and I like strip clubs. Somehow I've been conditioned to think this means I'm a fucking grade A badass, so I drink Jack Daniel's Sour Mash while spinning wheels in my 1970s Firebird that's not even that cool of a car, but it's black and fast and matches my leather."

I placed a hand over my heart and coughed. "That was like being shot in the fucking chest."

Roxas rolled her eyes and repositioned her purse. "How close was I?"

"I'm in a biker gang." She let out a whistle, but I continued before she could fall into the laughter she was biting back. "I think Firebirds are cool."

"You've revoked any semblance of cool that first glance brought."

"Hey—" I raised my hands in surrender. "I'm coming to you as an honest man."

"Well, that's your first mistake. Girls don't like honest men."

My lips twisted to the side, and I exhaled through my nose. "I wish I didn't know that was true."

"But you do, so why're you talking to me like this?"

She had turned to give me eye contact, and I realized she was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen on the face of the planet. I'd swept through my entire country state after state multiple times. I'd bedded at least a hundred girls, and I'd dated multiple women with pretty cheek bones and big blue eyes; but she was it. She was flawless with her tiny nose and full lips, and I wanted to know her full name. I _needed_ her to tell me why she spoke so eloquently for someone who'd been indulged by the ignorance of a small town.

"You'd know I'm full of shit anyway, and your entire occupation is built around men's fairytales." I'd fallen out of my lighter vibe. "What would be the point of offering you a drink and telling you things I've used on multiple women when you'd just _know_? What if I want to actually get to know you?"

"Either way, I'm still aware you're solely talking to me because you've seen my tits."

"I haven't, though."

Her smile grew incredulous. "What?"

My hand returned to my heart. "Bible, pretty lady, and you can go ask Xion. She won't lie."

"How do you know Xion?"

"Well, I don't know her, but she gave me free beers and told me I wasn't a biker, which was kind of full of shit, but whatever—free beer."

"Free beer _is_ pretty nice."

"A regular wound healer."

We continued onward, and I was allowing her to guide the way. The small town she lived in was made up of hut sized homes clustered behind the storefronts that made up the main stretch. There were a couple burger places, the local grocery store with overpriced milk and stale cereal, and endless hair and nail salons for the southern belle disposition. There was a Chinese buffet my friends and I had morphed into our second home because for some reason it was the best Chinese food we'd ever had in our entire lives, and there was a liquor store for every person in the state. Behind the hardware store was where I bought my weed. The apartment above the Italian restaurant was a crack house. I'd fucked a drunken girl in one of the seven church parking lots, and sometimes—when I was lost in my own coked out world of disregard—I slept on the park bench only to wake up before the sun rose so that children didn't see me hung over beneath the dead oak tree.

Roxas spoke. "So, you're an alcoholic, then."

"Hah—_wrong_."

"What's the one thing you do when you're sad, happy, miserable, indifferent, and content?"

I paused and pursed my lips. "I do different things."

"But what's the thing you're doing while doing different things."

_Well fuck._

"Drinking."

Roxas suddenly brought both of her index fingers up as if they were six shooters while she turned down a street toward the older part of town. It was where someone had started the trend of morphing old Victorian homes into apartment buildings. They were falling apart because the near-desert climate didn't do well with the structures and wood used.

Those imaginary six shooters began firing rounds. "Bang bang—my baby shot me down."

"A man needs his vices."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Our walk continued in a fleeting comfortable silence until she came to a sudden halt in front of an orange Victorian home with frayed paint and a stark nothingness for a yard. There were dodgy cars parked out front, but there weren't peculiar individuals or much to speak of aside from distorted bass deriving from an unidentifiable source. The end of her sidewalk was a long way to the front door, but there we stood with a sudden prominent silence because she was giving me an expectant look. To buy myself a couple seconds, I matched her stare with one of my own, and my chest warmed up when she looked away and lightly laughed at me.

"What does a man have to do to get an hour of your time?"

She leaned back away from me in surprise. "That's fifty per hour, actually."

My guts curdled, and it was like someone had speckled acid onto my lower abdomen. Apparently my blue haired friend hadn't been kidding, and she was the kind of pavement princess that you could get your rocks off for the right kind of money. The girl had immediately seen my approach as a way to gain access to the in between of her thighs, and she must have seen my fallen expression because she retracted even more. Somehow, she didn't seem embarrassed; but she did begin to pick at the strap of her bag. Then would've been a good time for me to say goodnight to her and go along my merry way, but instead I reached for my wallet.

It was her turn to look disappointed. "I usually don't take people into my house, but since you're here I guess it'll be okay."

Before we even began heading to her one bedroom apartment I slipped her a quick fifty. "This will only happen once. I promise."

Roxas' apartment was the typical white walled rental without many personal items to speak of. Her windows were lined with colorful hanging glass orbs she had collected from the local art gallery, but aside from that she was living in a deeply generic space where half the floor was lavender carpet and the other a layer of clothing. Everything was dainty down to the size of her rooms and mid-90s mismatched furniture. It seemed to not only make sense for her, but it also fit her entire personality. I didn't even know her, but had someone asked me to imagine a home for her, then this would've been it. The place was interesting even if there wasn't much.

"Do you have a preference for where or anything?"

Her voice was considerably hollow, and the disenchantment radiated from her like electricity. In that moment I was seemingly proving her point. She saw me as another male entity walking into her life to use her body for another hole to fuck, and she was already planning the fastest method to scour her body with steel wool and bleach once I was done doing whatever I wanted with her. It was miserable to watch her demeanor dissolve, and it was then that I wondered how anyone could grab her up and use her. Her consent was definitely there, but there was something so defeated about the way she set her bag down when I motioned for the couch.

The lighting was dim; she'd stepped out of her heels to reveal her true height. My eyes were completely locked in on her when she settled onto the couch with a quiet exhale, and there wasn't any semblance of a smile to be found on those lips I'd watched carry laughter only seconds beforehand. That was why when I sank down onto my knees in front of her without a supposing look she seemed genuinely befuddled. This wasn't how her typical appointments went. By then she would've already found herself in my own position with her hands working a belt loose or a man whispering the grossest horn dog concepts imaginable while she stripped off her bra.

"What are you doing?" She asked me with a surprisingly soft tone as I smoothed a hand along her thigh. The trail went from her knee to directly beneath the edge of her dress. "You only have an hour."

"That's enough time for one of us."

Continuing with dragging my palm along her smooth skin tanned by summer walks down the street, I glanced up to meet her eyes and it was then something dawned on her.

"You're wasting your money."

"Definitely not."


	2. Chinese Food

_It's like a bad eighties movie._

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**Chapter Two: Chinese Food**

Her cheap expectations bled into the way she hiccupped from surprise when teeth and tongue made contact with the inside of her thigh. Through every smoothing cream, glittering eye shadow and pink painted pout she was human. The realness of her body breathed out to me when she gave herself over to clean nervousness. No matter how much cock she'd seen and no matter how integrated she forced herself to be, Roxas had no experience with sex. The girl with enhancing pushup bras because God had only given her two handfuls was sniveling and squeezing her eyes shut while doing her best not to clasp onto the sides of my head with her thighs. Even though she had just learned my name she said it as if I was familiar enough to circulate through her blood stream. She was young, and the youthfulness could have easily been mistaken as serious dumbness, but the reality was I could already tell she wasn't. Roxas was surviving and that alone took more brain power than anyone with a Master's degree above their linoleum topped desk.

She stuttered on palpitations and begged for me to answer her breathless chant of 'why.' There was no way for her to comprehend the release of toe curling endorphins. By the time she'd finally reached down to tug at my hair her lips had been gnawed and licked clean of the cheap cherry Chapstick meant to hold more allure than it was worth. Her hips rotated—grinding into the couch cushion—without conscious effort. There was no refuting how I was her first time with someone solely focused on her body. Roxas' movements were hesitant and uncertain, and when she considered some authority she shied away until I reached for her hands and set the tiny digits where she wanted them. She was a religious experience with a dipping navel and breath that'd quickened the second my fingers hooked along the elastic of panties that were much simpler than expected. I had an hour to be a monster, and she was enjoying every centimeter of the muscle and skin my claws sank into.

"I want to see you tomorrow." I said the words concisely.

From the way her thigh jerked I could've sworn she was going to kick my nose into my brain. "Are you asking that _now_?"

"Sure am." Though, she had no reason to complain. It wasn't like I was missing much of a beat. "Say you will, and I'll shut up."

Her grip on my hair tightened until I winced, but she finally breathed out the next words with a pitched desperation hinged on the end. "I work tomorrow."

"When_ don't_ you work?" She purposely lifted her unsteady hips until I received a face full of blond south, and I laughed. "What was _that_?"

Roxas flat out whined the next words. "I'll check my schedule tomorrow. Will you _stop_ talking now?"

"So," I raised myself completely upright, and the look she gave me was the shaken cocktail of blood thirsty annoyance and gapping like a suffocating fish, "that's a _yes_?"

Her grip morphed into viciously clenched fists as she attempted to yank me back down. "Fix your moral compass!"

"Do you mean fix my _oral _compass?"

Before she could groan in disgust I returned to my previous placement between her thighs to relish in the way she brought herself into complete harmony with my tongue. Within seconds she was dancing herself across the palm of my open hand, and it wasn't long before her body went rigged and she released a sharp distinctive noise that sounded like a coughed squeak. My service was done, she couldn't breathe and I was more than satisfied with my handy work because she was seemingly stunned. For several seconds Roxas remained starry eyed with her gaze focused on the ceiling fan above us, and the only direct movement I made was wiping my lips with the back of my hand. Other than that I couldn't help but watch her lax, parted leg form take in a series of deep breaths. My smirk was plastered and eventually there was a clipped laugh as I pushed a set of fingers through my hair.

Roxas' voice cut like a hot knife through butter. "Are you done?"

Yanking out my phone, I whipped it open and checked the time. "Thirty more minutes."

After a couple seconds she closed her thighs and stood up. There wasn't an abundance of light in her apartment and the way the moon's rays tinted her skin blue caused me to cross examine the hidden greens people avoided to recognize in human pigment. Her eyes crystallized as they met mine, and in her presence I was comfortable remaining on my knees. Getting her off didn't make me a martyr throughout the abusive endeavors my gender cast over girls like her. She saw me as a mild monster because she needed the money, and I _knew_. I knew what I'd done and this was not how human relationships worked, but how did human beings like us interact normally? What was normal when you stripped off clothes for a living? What was normal when you dodged police bullets and circulated cocaine? I didn't know, and there was no way she could know. Nobody in our walk of life could understand because right and wrong is subjective. How can you tell someone what is and isn't when Hitler and Mussolini earnestly believed they were good? Draw me a line. Tell me where I'm wrong. I'll tell you why I'm right.

With panties back on Roxas yanked down her dress and sat. "Do you have a cigarette?"

"Sure."

For thirty minutes we didn't say anything, and I wasn't sure what the point of lingering was. In her own way she reverberated sadness that probably pushed the universe back light-years. I didn't know her. I didn't understand her, but when she closed her eyes and breathed in chemicals I understood that pause where her eyes crinkled. Had she been younger she might have cried. Had she not watched lives disperse over and over again like blown dandelions, then maybe tears would've pooled into the corners of her eyes. She might have looked at me accusingly and begged for me to go away, but she didn't. Her entire form was a part of the system where you think life is going to be something you can make until you're an iced over piece of the cosmos that never even wanted to give you a chance. She was nothingness in a world where so many got to be so much more.

"I'm going to give you my number."

Smoke wisped from her nostrils, and I could see the scar on her nose from where once upon a time it had been pierced. "Shouldn't you be asking for mine?"

My brow furrowed and I looked at her with a mock smile. "Do you think that's how it works?"

"That _is_ how it works." It wasn't an assertive statement. It was knowingness as if my methods were indisputably wrong. "You ask for my number and then call me when you want—"

"You're making it sound like you'd prefer that."

Roxas' pause was climatic in the sense that something struck a chord, and I knew she was thinking what I was thinking. _That's all I know_. Suddenly, she was reaching for her phone and handing it to me. "If I want to I'll call you. I didn't promise to meet back up with you."

My fingers stroked along the front of her phone as I typed my number into her contacts with a wistful smile. "I never said you did."

She had my number when I stood up and gave her simple apartment a final look over. There was another moment to absorb how it lacked a personable flare, and I wondered who she had. Did she love anyone? Had she ever loved anyone? Was it even possible when she slept with men who would rather pay her with a cheap bottle of whiskey than a wad of cocaine dusted bills? When I left she was going to return to her normal life where she would shower me away and want to rip out strand after strand of blond hair until she was ugly enough not to be anything to anyone anymore. There would be contemplation of mutilating her chest, face and thighs and becoming unconventionally beautiful because then just maybe someone would let her have peace of mind. A morning that was not a cruel sunset would become a reality, and she would breathe. It was amazing how people could pretend they were breathing.

"We wouldn't do this again." I promised that at her door because she was seeing me out without having to. I wanted to believe it wouldn't be a habit of hers if she regularly invited customers in and maybe I wasn't equal scum. "Not like this."

"But what if I wanted us to?"  
"See that's the difference—you'd _want_ to."

Her smile was incredulous, and I could tell she wasn't certain how to display the confliction without falsely informing me. "Don't talk to me as if you know what I want."

"Why does it matter if you don't want anything?"

The amusement played in her soft tone as she opened the door for me. "You can leave _now_."

"Hey-I'm going. I'm going."

I could've sworn I heard her mutter 'jackass' under her breath as she closed the door behind me. There was the sound of the deadbolt turning into place with a sharp thud, and I glanced over my shoulder before padding down stairs and onward to the sidewalk. Night air soaked into me, and after that experience I decided I needed a drink to soothe the disappointment that was me believing she would most definitely never call me. There was a level of pride there that was like a knife sawing into a dinner plate. She couldn't hear anything over the obnoxious screeching. Then again, I was the same way, and I'd set myself up for failure by practically being another divine piece of shit for her to erase from her memory.

* * *

The gang congregated in one of the beaten down houses speckled around the sandy outlands of the town. It was homage to a time when the great sickness overtook half the United States and a third of the population wasted away. Factories went down, the economy crashed hard enough to morph the Great Depression into a running joke, and chaos ensued for years. This was approximately fifty years before I was born, and the country was yet to contemplate recovering. There wasn't much connection to international affairs either. Canada had set up border control; Mexico was a wasteland of its own, and anyone else who had once contemplated supporting us finally showed colors. In fact, New York was bombed by China during 2043. The American dream had drifted with the 1900s and it took over a hundred years for society to implode enough for us to come to terms with our new Americano.

Free speech was only so powerful when nobody was listening, and the White House along with all of Capitol Hill had been in the process of dwindling in the Great D.C. Fire while I was a fetus. Not that I cared about the myth of organized government. Democracy and capitalism were a thing of the past, and those with any sense thought about his interests first. One of the truest things about human beings is that when the blues are vivid so are the vices and if one is interested in making money they fall into that line of work. My own father had taught me how to judge cocaine with fingertip tastes, and after he had kicked the bucket from a predictable overdose, I took over his cliental with a blessing from my mother. She died not long after Dad due to whiskey, and I was left sibling-less. Apparently, and I hadn't bothered to bring pictures with me upon signing up with the gang, I'd had an older brother named Reno. He was shot before I was born, though. I'd never felt any significant connection to him so there wasn't much of a longing there.

"Axel—mi amigo, my favorite la roux!"

Demyx padded into my bedroom which was a closed off walk-in closet with a twin mattress on the floor. There was a pack with my clothes piled on top of it in the corner, and my bong along with toiletries was stacked on a low shelf. Aside from the beer cans scattered around and festering Chinese takeout boxes I'd stacked, I didn't have much going for me. Not that it mattered since we moved from town to town about every three months. I'd long since given up the concept of a permanent residence, but I wasn't the only one.

There was a bong bubbling in my hands before I spoke. "Did Xemnas let you into the stash?"

"As if, man." He plopped down beside me, and I didn't think twice about passing. "I heard you went home with a stripper the other night. How was that?"

"You know—for someone who doesn't give a shit about anything but Xemnas—Saïx likes to run his mouth."

"Don't worry. He was only mentioning it to Xemnas in passing." Demyx took a hit and laughed at whatever mental image was running through his mind. "You know how we like to paint our toes and gossip together. Saïx is always revving for a pillow fight after we make low calorie smoothies and broil carb free nachos. We usually practice making out together and whisper 'shh, it's okay' because, you know, everyone does it."

My nose crinkled. "Don't even get me started on him."

"You need to lighten up, seriously. For someone who tokes their fucking brains out you sure as hell stay tense. Can't imagine what you'd be like without cannabis."

"I'd sleep a lot less."

"Man, wouldn't we all?"

In truth, I was almost certain Demyx was there to make sure I hadn't boozed myself dead. It'd happened to a couple members before us, and I guess the substance abuse put everyone on edge. Not enough to set limitations, though. There were people who were remarkable human beings with the ability to push and keep their bodies clean. Xemnas was an example of that. While the rest of his followers were choking down whatever their bodies could handle in order to seal up emotionless voids he was drinking iced tea in his room. The only one who was as close to being addiction free was Xigbar, and he was a chronic drinker. Remarkably, I liked Xigbar. For a man with an eye patch and dialect stripped from a seventeen year old bum he knew how to scare the shit out of me. Once upon a time, I spit on his boots and ended up on my back with a barrel clanking between my teeth so fast I didn't even have time to register what had happened. It wasn't until he yanked the gun back and twirled the six-shooter around his index finger did I realize he could've turned my brain into a milkshake. It's safe to say I'd decided we needed to be friends.

Demyx sat in silence with me for several seconds only to leave with the intention to eat. I was bored, and when I was bored I typically tried to sleep. Right then I was awake to the point that not even smoking was going to knock me on my ass and prescription medication had never been my thing. It was too valuable to take anyway. Five Xanax pills could buy someone a house these days, and honestly, since the pharmaceutical companies had gone under I was pretty sure those kind of drugs were a myth. Xemnas claimed he had a stash of them and sold only when things got particularly rough, but I had a difficult time believing anything that came out of his mouth anymore. Xemnas' whimsy had faded the second I lost Saïx to him.

When I left my room I strode toward the front door, and I was relieved the sun only had a couple hours left in the sky. Already the arid breeze was cooling down, and I needed a walk. There had been a time before I joined the gang when I considered taking the leap of faith toward the northern border. Crossing it was easier said than done. There were rumors society in California was picking back up so I had two options for potential contentment, but that was a fantasy we all sat around and joked about. Leaving the United States took the kind of grit and connections I didn't have. Going to California meant leaving the only kind of family I had, and there was nothing driving me to snap the roots I'd embedded in my fellow riders. I was going nowhere. I didn't mind.

In the center of the derelict town there was a fountain. Water supplies were low, but the crumbling ornament was one of the sacrifices the sandy place made to make something aesthetically pleasing. The water spurted out from a cement circle in the middle of the ghost town that was old Main Street, and when we'd first shown up I'd watched a little girl trip and skin her knee. Her blood had whirled down the drain, and I considered how the water repurposed itself. It was being spritzed onto her fellow playmates.

I was passing the biohazard fountain when I spotted a flash of blond. Standing beneath the skeleton of a tree in American flag shorts that showed off that rounded bottom of a toned ass was Roxas. There was a pale blue Popsicle in one hand and a white halter top hidden beneath a studded denim jacket draping her torso. Honestly, it was the most clothing I'd seen on her to date. She was watching something, and when I followed her gaze I realized she was giving the stare down to the children playing in the fountain as if she was a hawk. Truth be told, I wasn't sure if she was keeping an eye on them or contemplating gunning them down.

"The day job?" I asked as I stepped up beside her.

She didn't look away from the fountain. "You could say that."

My hands quickly made their way into my jacket pockets, and I wondered why she was so fucking difficult to talk to. "I take it not calling me was a kind way of saying fuck off?"

"And yet you're standing beside me right now." The words were followed by a poignant bite of her blue dessert. "I'm not obligated to call you because you wasted money to eat me out."

"I never said you were."

"You smell like a spilt bong and desperation."

Raising both hands in surrender, I was quick to let out a low whistle before chuckling. "_Yikes_. I wasn't going to mention the cellulite on your ass, but okay then."

Her brow furrowed and I could tell she was biting back the urge to look at her ass. "I do _not_ have cellulite."

She was right. She didn't. "Whatever you say, baby doll."

"Telling a girl she has cellulite is not a way to get her to call you."

"That ship sailed ten seconds ago when you called me desperate. " It was actually still at the dock. "Can I at least ask why you're here?"'

Roxas sucked on the end of the Popsicle with a gratuitous slurp and then finally spoke. "Their parents aren't around."

"You mean dead?"

"No. Even worse; they're somewhere not caring. Somewhere under a table, in bed or on a couch with too much cough syrup and booze in their systems. They'd be better off dead, but they're thriving in bars and leaving children to fend for themselves from sunrise to sunset. If I was allowed to, then I'd do those children the favor of killing their parents so they could be safe in the southern orphanages."

"That was surprisingly dark."

"It's the truth."

"So…" I dragged a foot to step around her and lean against the tree. "You babysit for free."

With closed eyes her tongue dragged along her wrist to catch dripping juice. "If that's how you want to put it. Someone has to care, and I buy them ice cream. They like me enough to listen."

This was what Xion had meant. The charity she spoke of was Roxas taking care of business left to the old world. Parents rarely cared about their children once they began walking, and children didn't seek kindness from Mom and Dad. I had been one of the fortunate few to understand parental love, and at least I'd had a handful of years when my mom told me she loved me and my dad light heartedly made fun of my changing voice. That wasn't normal anymore. A person being in love wasn't either, and kids from school had even condemned me for knowing it still existed in its own form. They'd assumed I would have thin skin. It's safe to say their charred bodies are currently buried in sandlots. Compliments from me, and the beginning of a signature.

"Do you want to get a drink when these kids go home?"

Her lips twisted to the side, and I was exasperating her. For a long time neither of us said anything, and she seemed solely focused on the playful screeches of children splashing each other. Eventually, I decided she wasn't going to take me up on the offer, and I shoved my ego aside to change the topic.

"It's sad to know they're going to grow up and be like us."

"Do you think it's sad?" She asked with a quirked brow.

"That there's no hope? Of course, I do."

"Where do you think hope comes from?"

Pausing in surprise because I had no idea how to answer that, I decided to be honest. "I wouldn't know. I've never had a lot of hope for any of us."

We watched the kids in their ratty shorts and t-shirts play for several minutes of silence, and I finally sat down on the ground. It was my way of letting her know I had no plans to leave her even if it meant not talking. The area was comfortable, and I couldn't recall the last time I'd witnessed ignorant bliss. Children wove around one another like they were living a ballet, and when the girls flung water in boys' faces and whirled away to avoid being tackled I tried to recall a time when I myself didn't recognize the corruption we lived in. I guess it didn't matter because we were who we were and the world wasn't going to change in my lifetime. Making the best of it wasn't so much of an option as it was a survival skill.

The sun sank. The kids went home with waves to Roxas, and I look up at her as she chewed on the end of that wooden Popsicle stick. Lost in her mind, it took her a couple seconds to speak up.

"Did you still want to get that drink?"  
It was my turn to give her a look of humored disbelief. "Yeah."

* * *

She wouldn't let me pay for her whiskey. That was fine. She asked how a road dog like me had ended up in her dusty town, and I had to ask her where the dust ended anymore. There was literal truth to that. Our climate was god awful to the point that starvation wasn't a joke for some regions.

"There's Sora," she said, voice hushed to keep attention from being brought to us. "Would you like some advice?"

I knocked back a quick sip. "Always."

"He's the last person anyone needs to mess with around here."

Not laughing took a lot of effort. He was small, first of all. He probably had about six inches on Roxas, and then because of his goofy demeanor where he was playfully shoving some red headed girl I couldn't even pretend to be threatened. Roxas caught how unimpressed I was by the American flag bandana he sported and babyish face, but she redirected my gaze with a tap of the chin.

"I'm serious."

My laugh was forced into a cough. "I'm sure you are."

She thought I was stupid. "You said you're in a biker gang. I don't think I've ever seen your kind of jacket around. Numeric isn't a typical insignia for the gangs we get around here."

I raised three fingers. "Can't mention it. Scout's Honor, pretty girl."

"You've managed to do two things with that. Not only am I suspicious but I'm suspicious about two things. You're either a monster or you're a liar and not a part of any kind of gang."

My laughter couldn't be restrained. "Do yourself the favor and refrain from calling me a fucking liar."

"I didn't say you were one. Nothing's been confirmed."

"What's your story?" I asked.

Roxas suddenly laughed at me, and the sound was unlike anything I'd ever heard. The expression of amusement was trickling waterfalls, a harp, something ethereal that should have belonged to a nymphet wandering barefoot beneath a canopy of trees. She was a little girl who had swan dived into womanhood, and I wondered how she had survived with her face, words and disregard for those more powerful than her. Had I wanted to I could've broken into her ribcage like an overripe melon and doused the rotting interior with gasoline. Light a match, wall of flames, gone.

"I take my clothes off for a living."

"That's an occupation not a story."

"Aren't I like twelve? Do people have stories when they're twelve?"

My nose wrinkled. "Don't tease my morals."

Roxas snorted into her glass. "What morals?"

"_Personal_ values, you hussy."

Her fingers traced the rim of her glass. "I was born and raised here. I am this town just like everyone in this bar except _you_."

"Now, is that a problem?"

"Not unless you make it one."

Sometimes people say things on the right kind of note and you find yourself biting down in the middle of a breath. She was tiny, but that had been the most smoothly articulated threat I'd ever been handed, and I was one more insult from caressing her face and asking her to elope—except not really because marriage was about as tasteless as reusing a condom for our generation. My lips parted to formulate a sentence worthy of a counter, but my smartass had been handed to me on a golden platter. Two mounds of fleshy 'fuck you' settled amongst roasted apples and turnips. I wanted to thank her for making me _uncomfortable_.

"Since you're not going to tell me your story, then tell me Sora's."

It was her turn to give me the three finger salute. "Scout's honor."

Narrowing my eyes at her as if she were suddenly one hell of a sly dog, I opened my mouth only to find myself thrown off. No. Literally, I was thrown off my barstool by sudden quaking accompanied by an ear ringing boom. Hitting the untreated cement, Roxas was soon on top of me with her own exclamation of discomfort. That physical contact lasted approximately two seconds before a white cowboy boot slammed into my lower abdomen as the blond used me for leverage to stand. Groaning, Roxas didn't give me any kind of second glance while she booked it out the front door with Sora in front of her, some redheaded girl beside her followed by a silver haired guy I hadn't noticed until right then. While I forced myself upright, the rest of the bar's cliental had lunged toward the windows to see what was going on. Apparently, it hadn't been an earthquake.

There was something awe inspiring about the things my gang could accomplish. Then, sometimes the things it did were genuinely embarrassing, and I could never take my name off its actions. The bombing of one of the local Chinese restaurants had been the brain child of a very unsatisfied customer better known as Marluxia, and as I watched the aflame building from the bar I could only purse my lips at the time and hope the reason had been… well, _reasonable_. Not that our train of motivation ever seemed to link with anyone else's, but it was safe to say I wasn't shocked to eventually discover Marluxia's order from the establishment had not only been ten minutes late, but his chow mein had been cold and-as he had put it-_grim_. That alone was just cause for ten causalities; two of them being children and one an expecting woman. It was a completely warranted waste of supplies, as always. When I asked him if he was 'fucking stupid' he had proceeded to tell me I needed 'a fucking attitude adjustment.' Marluxia had never been my favorite son of a bitch.

While watching the building burn to a crisp my eyes scanned over the frantically running civilians, and I eventually pushed my way outside. Roxas had disappeared like a specter. Her interest in me had been kindly forced, but the reality of that had solidified when she had vanished into thin air with her faceless friends. Aside from Sora I couldn't seem to conjure the other two kids' faces. It was only the fleeting glimpses of hair color and Sora's obnoxious American flag headband that had managed to permeate into my memory. It was an infuriating mental slip on my part.

The sound of a hog roaring at me caused me to turn toward a gravel parking lot beside the bar. It was Demyx revving his bike and he was grinning. "Axel, I thought you'd finally found a ditch to die in!"

"Stop telling me your wet dreams!" I strode toward him until I was out of earshot of anyone else. "Don't tell me we're behind this."

"Fine, I won't." He paused, struggled, and then clenched his teeth before hissing. "Oh, _God_, I can't lie to you."

We watched the fire for a moment. "I had a feeling..."

"It sort of looks like one of your jobs, actually. Marluxia would've slit their throats, but he was too pissed off to take the time."

"Were we dealing with them?"

"I mean," he started with a thoughtful stare. "You could say that."

"We weren't were we?"

Demyx shook his head. "No, no we weren't."

"Again with the feeling…"

"But look at it this way. We'll never get poor service from them again!"

Motioning toward my bike that was a few feet away, I began walking backwards away from him. "Always the optimist, Demyx."

"Hey, man! Someone's got to be!"

I gave him a wave and a nod before dragging my hand along the back of my neck.

God, that girl was never going to call me.


End file.
